I knew something was wrong as soon as I received the early morning text. Steve, a family friend who walked our 14-year-old dog, Ikaika, told me our boy was lying listless at Kapi‘olani Park. When we met at the vet, Ikaika could barely sit up, yet his tail wagged as it always did when he saw me. The vet informed us that Ikaika’s heart was enlarged from a tumorous cancer. Nothing could be done. He was suffering.
In a blur, my family gathered, along with Steve and his wife, Laura, who loved Ikaika as much as we did. I still can’t articulate the sorrow of saying goodbye. As the nightmare unfolded, all I kept thinking was, please, not Ikaika.
He was a rescue, born to a homeless person’s dog in Wai‘anae. Although a military family adopted him as a puppy, they got deployed and gave him up after a few short months. The couple who fostered him next thought the world of him but couldn’t keep him.
“WORLD’S GREATEST DOG!” That was the subject line that caught my eye as I scanned Craigslist to find a dog for my mother. It was 2011, and my father had passed away a few months prior. Although my mom didn’t want another dog, she agreed to adopt Ikaika after someone tried to break into her home.
Photo: Diane Seo
As a 1-year-old, Ikaika was rambunctious, but my mom, with her dog whisperer ways, shaped him to be her perfectly behaved walking partner. She lives near Kapi‘olani Park, and over the next decade, they logged thousands of miles together. Two walks a day, early morning and late afternoon, 4 miles total. Countless people told me they saw them trekking up Diamond Head Road, him at her side keeping her exact pace, which slowed over the years.
In Hawaiian, “ikaika” means “strong,” and our pup lived up to his name. My mom used to brag that he was the fastest swimmer at the beach. “He beats all the other dogs,” she told me more than once. He would have been the perfect surfer’s dog, the kind you could take out on a longboard or leave on the beach knowing he would just stay there, guarding your towel and keys. Once, a surfer with his own dog did approach my mom. “You wanna trade?” he asked, eyeing our boy.
To say Ikaika was the sweetest of the sweet feels short of superlatives. Our white and caramel pit bull (with some poodle, German Shepherd and chihuahua) was the purest, gentlest soul. He loved our family, fiercely watched the house, and devoted himself to looking after my mom, just like my father did.
After my mom broke her hip, Steve, Laura and I took over the walks, and my early morning and evening jaunts with him through the park turned into healing, meditative outings. By then, he had lost his hearing, so as he sniffed trees, I listened to audiobooks, and the profound lessons were transforming my life. Some mornings, like the one captured in the photo here, we had the park to ourselves, and I felt what can only be described as bliss. With him happily at my side, beautiful greenery all around us, I’d think, “I don’t need anything more than this.”
But after Ikaika celebrated his last birthday, I started worrying. He had arthritis, and one time on a walk, he started limping. My heart raced. “Ikaika!” It turned out to be a “pokie” in his paw.
I haven’t been able to resume the walks since he passed. One morning I tried, but felt sad the whole time. Something lifted though after our Aloha Ikaika ceremony. In November, we paddled out on an outrigger canoe and released his ashes a few miles off Waikīkī Beach. As two manu-o-kū flew above, I sensed his spirit soaring above the ocean, rising to new heights. I imagined him with his best friend, Keanu, Steve and Laura’s ridgeback, who passed away years earlier. I knew our boy was happy and still watching over us.
I thought of how he arrived, exuberantly advertised as the world’s greatest dog, but what I didn’t know then was that he would embody the title, bolstering us when we needed it, forever embedding himself into the heart of our family.
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